One of the least publicized of all Army services is the
Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps, which has given 100 years of
dedicated work to caring for Australian servicemen in times of war and its
aftermath.

The history of the Corps dates back to 1898 when a small
nursing service was formed in Sydney. It consisted of one Lady
Superintendent and twenty four nurses. The first actual service of nurses
was during the Boer War (1898-1903).

An Australian Army nurse in England during World War 1. (AWM H07534)

When war broke out in 1914, the Australian Government
raised the first Australian Imperial Force for overseas service. The
nurses to staff the medical units, which formed an integral part of the
AIF, were recruited from the Australian Army Nursing Service Reserve and
from the civil nursing profession.

Senior Officers were more inclined to have trained male
soldiers in preference to female nurses. Major General Howse (Director of
Medical Services) has been quoted as saying that “the female nurse (as a
substitute for the fully trained male nursing orderly) did little toward
the actual saving of life in war... although she might promote a more
rapid and complete recovery”. General Howse was speaking at a time when
the contribution of the Nursing Service to the treatment of the wounded
soldiers, at an early stage, had yet to be recognized by the Australian
authorities.

The first draft of Sisters in the Australian Army Nursing
Services (AANS) left Australia in September 1914; and throughout the war,
the Nursing Service served wherever Australian troops were sent, and
numerous other countries besides these. Most also served in British
hospitals in various theatres of war.

They served in places such as Burma, India, The Persian
Gulf, Egypt, Greece, Italy, France and England.

The record of service for these Sisters is a brilliant
one, and one which set a very high standard for all who were to follow.
The following statistics are noteworthy:

more than 2286 nurses served overseas

more than 423 served in Australia

25 died

at least 388 were decorated (seven Military Medals
were awarded to Australian Nurses for their courage under fire).

An
example of one nurse's experience under fire is from Sister Kelly’s
diary from a Casualty Clearing Station on the Western Front....

“The noise was so terrific, and the concussion so great
that I was thrown to the ground and had no idea where the damage was. I
flew through the chest and abdo wards and called out: ‘are you alright
boys?’ ‘don’t bother about us’ was the general cry.”

All the hospitals lights were out and there was a faint
moon, but the sky overhead was full of searchlights and fragments from the
bursting anti-aircraft artillery. She passed the cook running for an
adjacent paddock, swearing hard and complaining that the bombs had put his
fire out.

Running on, she suddenly fell headlong into a bomb
crater...

“I shall never forget the awful climb on hands and feet
out of that hole that was about five feet deep with greasy clay and blood
(although I did not know then that it was blood). A bomb had fallen
directly alongside the pneumonia ward (pre-antibiotic).”

The tent had collapsed on forty six stretcher cases
inside...

“though I shouted, nobody answered me, or I could hear
nothing for the roar of planes and artillery. I seemed to be the only
living thing about.”

She raced back to the tent and was shortly joined by the
badly shaken Padre, who went off to get help (after urging her to take
cover). She ignored the advice and again tried to get into the tent.
Grabbing hold of a handle under the fly she tried to drag a stretcher
free. The patient was dead, and the splintered handle came away in her
hand, throwing her backwards into the crater again.

“I cannot remember what came next, or what I did, except
that I kept calling for the orderly to help me and thought he was funking,
but the poor boy had been blown to bits. Somebody got the tent up, and
when I got to the delirious pneumonia patient, he was crouched on the
ground at the back of the stretcher. He took no notice of me when I asked
him to return to bed, so I leaned across the stretcher and put one arm
around and tried to lift him in. I had my right arm under a leg, which I
thought was his, but when I lifted I found to my horror that it was a
loose leg with a boot and a puttee on it. It was one of the orderly’s
legs which had been blown off and had landed on the patient’s bed. The
next day they found the trunk about 20 yards away.”

To put into some perspective the workloads and consequent
stresses these nurses endured, consider:

During the First World War, a one thousand bed hospital,
in Cairo, completely under tentage, without any floor covering was staffed
by 1 Matron, 15 Sisters and 30 Staff Nurses with male medical orderlies
from the Australian Army Medical Corps.

Abbassia, Cairo, Egypt, 22 September 1917. Two members of the nursing
staff of the 14th Australian General Hospital (14AGH) and two patients
(from a photograph donated by J. Scott-Findlay). (AWM P0036/09/14)

In 1917, in France, the hospital had to be extended to
2,000 beds during a “heavy rush.”

Compare this to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1990...
700 beds and a staff of 670 nurses, excluding administration and
education.

Acting under such adverse conditions, these ladies proved
themselves to be of awesome dedication, courage and spirit, and truly
professional.